


the law of forgetting

by lyryk (s_k)



Category: Talented Mr Ripley (1999)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 04:23:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13046415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_k/pseuds/lyryk
Summary: "You must learn soon, soon, that even loveCan be no shield against the abstract demons:Time, cold and fire, and the law of pain,The law of things falling, and the law of forgetting.The messengers, of faces and names knownOr of forms familiar, are innocent."--Hyam PlutzikHappy Yuletide, Age or Wizardry, and I hope you have a lovely year ahead! Thank you for the wonderful prompt about Marge. <3 I went with a combination of movie-verse (because Meredith!) and book-verse (because Peter's alive!).





	the law of forgetting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Age or Wizardry (ageorwizardry)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ageorwizardry/gifts).



_Three are three things to remember about the law of forgetting._

_One: you never stay in the same place for very long. Two: you always carry a notebook and pencil with you: a notebook because leaves of loose paper are hard to pin down and a pencil because it's the most honest way to write, unlike the faux finality of pen and ink. Three: there's always a fourth unwritten rule._

The opening lines of her book read like this. She hasn't started typing yet because there's a certain finality to the act that frightens her, makes her believe that she'll never be better than the as-yet-unedited black lines printed on the page, minor harbingers of ordinary doom: not the apocalyptic kind, the kind that means life or death, but just the kind that means her father may be right when he says he needs to stop thinking about her hobbies and start thinking about marriage or, failing any good prospects in that direction, a career.

 

\--

 

Meredith is charming to others; only Marge sees the uncertainty that lingers beneath her skin like the ghost of a faded brand.

Meredith's skin is soft and warm, pulsing at the wrist with heartbeats and blood when Marge pushes up the sleeve of her long coat and slides her fingertips across her suddenly bared skin. They're in a cafe across the road from Harrods, the third in a series of irregular dates initiated by a chance meeting at a Christmas party where they were two lost refugees from Italy, old ghosts and the discomfiting recognition of shared loss bringing them together in the midst of fake holiday cheer and too-shiny tinsel and tiny hors d'oeuvres and champagne flutes carried by waiters in black and white.

"I have a book club meeting at three," Meredith says. "Would you like to go with me?"

"I would." Marge doesn't ask which book they'll be discussing. There's time enough to find out.

Meredith smiles easily, withdrawing her hand and tugging her sleeve back into place, leaving Marge feeling that she's covering up a secret.

 

\--

 

Peter's still the same.

Unlike Marge -- and unlike Meredith -- he still carries Italy with him like a blanket around his shoulders. She remembers the concerts he'd given there, the ethereal music he played in a church in Venice in a service she'd once attended. Vivaldi's own church, he'd called it, and she'd loved that phrase, loved him for coming up with it.

"You're still abnormally tall," she says, a lazy attempt at a joke, as he kisses her on both cheeks European-style before sitting down from her across the wicker table in the patio of her favourite restaurant. The freely affectionate gesture reminds her how little of Europe there is in Britain.

"I think I'm stuck like this," he says with a grin, his hair still shinier than hers, long wayward strands over his forehead. "How's the book?"

"A little lost." She startles herself with the realisation that she can be honest with him in a way that she can't with anyone else: certainly not her family, and especially not Meredith, with whom she's someone else entirely, someone she puts on to impress the other woman.

"Tell me about it," he says, leaning in, his attention entirely on her.

She does.

 

\--

 

The book, as it turns out, is _The Lord of the Rings_.

"You know," Meredith says as they stand outside the club, pulling on her long white gloves, "they say the English-speaking world consists of two kinds of people: those who've read _The Lord of the Rings_ and those who are going to read it."

They've arrived in her chauffeur-driven car, and Marge likes the fact that Meredith has waited until the last possible moment to put her gloves on, belying the propriety of her clothing. Marge herself has little patience with social convention (although she admits to herself that winters in London do warrant warm clothing).

"Shall we?" Meredith holds out her arm, crooked at the elbow. They walk in arm-in-arm, just two gentlewomen walking with perfect propriety into a perfectly respectable establishment for a perfectly respectable evening of intellectually stimulating conversation over books and more tiny portions of food.

Later, in the back seat of the car -- the sliding window between them and the driver's seat pulled firmly shut -- Meredith's gloves come off again, and the sure, gliding warmth of her hands is an invitation to inscribe something new over the blank slate of the past. Marge isn't such a fool that she won't take it.

 

\--

 

"Is it serious?" Peter asks seriously.

He's always serious in tone, his voice softened by the light in his eyes, the sureness of his hands. Today they're idly caressing the keys of the piano in her parents' living room, absently playing snatches from various tunes in between pieces of conversation. Her parents think that she and Peter are dating. Here, in this city, in its drawing rooms, no one knows them the way they know each other.

"I don't know," she says, honest. Meredith is a secret from everyone except Peter. "I want to travel again."

Peter accepts the non sequitur without surprise. "Italy?"

"No," she says, and she senses him relax, as though he, too, has wounds beneath his skin that he'd rather not reopen. Marge can relate to that. "India, maybe."

His smile is radiant. Turning back to the piano, he plays for about a minute, a gorgeous melody, slow and melancholy. "It's from a Hindi film. Composed by Shankar and Jaikishan. I love their music."

"Will you go with me?"

Finally, she's succeeded in surprising him. "What about Meredith?"

"I can ask her if she wants to come along."

"Ask her. It'll be an adventure."

"I will. If you don't mind being a third wheel." She's teasing, and he knows it.

"Who knows? Maybe I'll get to meet a nice boy," he says with a straight face. A second later they're both laughing, slow chuckles that quickly turn to loud laughter, uncontrollable mirth spilling out of them.

Christmas in a tropical land. It could be the beginning of a long thaw that they both desperately need.


End file.
